Paris All Stars Vs. Inglorious Bombshells

Paris RollerGirls All-Stars (197-139) Berlin Inglorious Bombshells

April 20th, 2013 / Wohnzimmer Bout II, Berlin (GER)

The scores do not reflect the game. It was harder than expected from a B-team (especially with lots of their players having their first go at bouting) and we had to fight against a strategic and organized opponent.

The game took place in the Bombshells' training venue and was private: only the people on the guestlist could come and watch. We had 200 pairs of eyes observing us, cheering Berlin. All but three little Parisian girls, supporting us with pom-poms and songs!

The game was doubly tiring:

1. We were only 10 on the Parisian roster -- hopefully with a line-up manager and a bench coach!
2. We are used to wooden floors... and (speaking for myself) having to juke on a special gym floor with hybride wheels is super comfy indeed, but quite exhausting! I lacked reactivity during the whole game because the floor was sucking all of my energy and would not answer back at my commands. The Nanterre days are far and gone! -- most energy-greedy floor I have ever skated on, and two years ago, we used to train on it 7 hours every weekend. We had superhero thighs back then!

 

Rosters

FIRST PERIOD

We had a very clean first period with almost no penalties during which we scored more than half of our points. We had a couple of powerjams as soon as the third jam, which enabled us to take a comfortable lead. I found that half much more tiring than the second one probably because of the Germans' defensive tactic: their 4-player flat walls were a real pain in the neck to break through. Yet the Parisian walls were not a piece of cake either for the Bombshell jammers, who found themselves several times struggling during the 2 minutes of the jam while our jammers were scoring passes, which helped widening the score gap. At the end of the first period we were leading 31 to 106, but we somehow knew that the toughest part was still to come...

SECOND PERIOD

The 30-minute break was salutary to recover. But it did not prevent the second period from starting with a flourish of penalties and a continuous stream of blue uniforms in the box! Outnumbered packs and a couple of powerjams at our expense contributed to a narrowing of the gap, and the Germans passed the bar of the hundreds. After ten jams, we managed to stabilize and get back to full packs on the track. It is the traditional Parisian 10-min chaos, nothing to worry about, we (usually) pull ourselves together at some point.
Yet, it cost us dearly: although we were still quite far ahead, the opponents were getting more confident and some of our players were on the hot seat with 6 penalties. We managed to concentrate enough to maintain the scores until the last few jams, when we resumed our group visits to the box. It was time the game was over!

MVPs

Congrats to MVP Jammers Donner Doro (#22, BCRD) and Joan Get (#27, PRG), to MVP Blockers Great Vengeance (#244, BCRD) and Butch Shan (#3, PRG), as well as to the Coolest MVPs Joan of Snark (#412, BCRD) and Sailor Blood (#109, PRG... well-deserved "sexiest" Line-up manager)!

Personal congrats to our two virgin players Roxy Bat Girl and Bully Bunker, no-penalty performances with only 10 players on the run deserve to be underlined!

...And although I am not satisfied with my overall unresponsive skating of the day, let's think positive: self-congrats for having scored half of the total points!

AFTERMATH

The afterparty took place at Wowsville Bar. Most of the Parisians spent the night there, before heading to the airport to take the first morning flight. We had a compromise, partying a bit and then having a short but refreshing night, to be on form for the Monday noon practice to which we were invited!